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Ioannis Liakos
Ioannis
Liakos
Pietro Salvagnini
Pietro
Salvagnini
Alice Scarpellini
Alice
Scarpellini
Riccardo Carzino
Riccardo
Carzino
Elisa Mele
Elisa
Mele
Vittorio Murino
Vittorio
Murino
Athanassia Athanassiou
Athanassia
Athanassiou
Biomimetic locomotion on water of a porous natural polymeric composite
Loughborough University
2016
Self - motors
Bio - locomotion
Bio - mimetics
Marangoni effect
Surface tension gradient
Materials Engineering not elsewhere classified
2016-04-07 08:25:16
Journal contribution
https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/journal_contribution/Biomimetic_locomotion_on_water_of_a_porous_natural_polymeric_composite/9235655
Observation of the natural world can provide invaluable information on the mechanisms that semiaquatic living organisms or bacteria use for their self-propulsion. Microvelia, for example, uses wax excreted from its legs to move on water in order to escape from predators or reach the bank of the river. Mimicking such mechanism, few self-propelled materials on water, as camphor, have been previously developed, but weak points like slow locomotion, short movement duration or shape-restrictions still
need to be improved. Herein we present a totally green self-assembled porous system, formed by the combination of a natural polymer with an essential oil, that spontaneously moves on water for hours
upon expulsion of the oil, with high velocities reaching 15 cm/s. The structural characteristics of the natural polymeric composite are carefully analyzed and associated to its spontaneous movement. Surface tension change experiments are also presented that connect the essential oil release with the locomotion of the porous composite films. This research work opens novel routes towards bio-inspired
natural materials that can be used for mimicking and studying the motion of bio-organisms and microorganisms, and for applications such as energy harvesting, aquatic pollution monitoring, drug delivery, to name few.